Inventing God

[blazeofglory]

It sounds enigmetic. Every new idea is enigmatic and strange until we digest and assimilate it. For your conditioned to a particular set of belief and you think within a a box and can not dare come out of it.

You are a prisionor of your surroundings, your relatives, your beleifs. Break the wall of the prison and see you will have a differnt and broad expereince.

Your religions, yuor cultures, your upbringings are confining you within a narrow domain of your prropensities.

You have gods, you have prejudices and preoccupations.

Feel frerr and come out of the box of your thought system.

God is you.

The cosmos is you.

All you see around you is you

Imagine how does God exiist to you atlease if your metnal frame does keep it
God is your invention.

[weepingforloman]

Probably the wrong place for this thread.

Plus, as I mentioned, this is unsubstantiated and unprovable.

[bibliophile190]

If we are God, then we've done a pretty poor job of it, as far as I can see. I'm not sure I'd want to be my own personal god. Look at history, hasn't exactly been pleasant has it?

[aeroport]

Probably the wrong place for this thread.
Plus, as I mentioned, this is unsubstantiated and unprovable.
Quite right; we keep that sort of thing in the "Religious Texts" forum. :D


If we are God, then we've done a pretty poor job of it, as far as I can see. I'm not sure I'd want to be my own personal god. Look at history, hasn't exactly been pleasant has it?
I am just arguing for the sake of argument here, but isn’t the ugliness of history (of which we little gods, who have beginnings and endings and such, are not really a part) more a failure on the part of the other God, big “g” and so forth?

[Gorilla King]

If we are God then why do we so frequently fail to live up to our own standards?

I'm not God. Jesus Christ is God.

[Redzeppelin]

God is you.

Few things in reality are more frightening than this idea - that if any of us became "God" in the sense of being all-powerful, what kind of abuses would we visit upon the rest of the world? Inherently selfish as humans are, being "God" is impossible (and undesireable). As well, if you mean "I am the sole arbiter of my life" - well, that may or may not be true, but to set yourself up as the "divine standard" in your life is self-worship - and that rarely makes people into better people.


The cosmos is you.

No: the cosmos is a bunch of planets, stars, gas and other celestial phenomena.


All you see around you is you

Do you see the disturbingly egocentric theme of these statements? Everything is about me. That alone should reveal the problem with this line of thinking.


God is your invention.

Absurd. The worship of ourselves leads to madness and destruction.


I am just arguing for the sake of argument here, but isn’t the ugli ness of history (of which we little gods, who have beginnings and endings and such, are not really a part) more a failure on the part of the other God, big “g” and so forth?

Only if God is responsible for all that happens. He gave us free will and we have made - on our own - choices that have resulted in the reality of our history. God allows us to make those choices, but we are ultimately responsible.

[weepingforloman]

Quite right; we keep that sort of thing in the "Religious Texts" forum. :D


I am just arguing for the sake of argument here, but isn’t the ugliness of history (of which we little gods, who have beginnings and endings and such, are not really a part) more a failure on the part of the other God, big “g” and so forth?

Why do people always blame God? Have they forgotten the story of the Fall? It's our own stupid fault.

[blazeofglory]

If we are God, then we've done a pretty poor job of it, as far as I can see. I'm not sure I'd want to be my own personal god. Look at history, hasn't exactly been pleasant has it?

Here you seem to be confused. When I say you are God all say is this cosmos means God is manifest. How can you be separate from God at all. There is no reason we are not God. The problem is only awareness. The awareness of the fact that we are God.

Feel at one with everything that sorrounds you or that exists around you. Enable to permete thru everything both animates and inanimates. To be more precise feel even a piece of stone is inseparable from you. Feel even your enemy is also part of you the way your mates or freinds are.

Share what you feel.

That is why we need spirituality to understand this truth. This realization comes after going thru some stages of life.

Sublimate your mind and give up differences. See your reflection on others. That is how you must proceed to near yourself to divinity or divinize your self.

This matter is very subtle. Your crude logicality does not work here.

I am not a preacher. This is my feelings and a bit of my esperince with reality or spirituality.

[Gorilla King]

Why do people always blame God? Have they forgotten the story of the Fall? It's our own stupid fault.

Probably the same reason people who spill coffee on their laps sue McDonald's. :lol:

God says:
"I love you. I love you so much I'm willing to die for you so that you can be renewed to your former glory and beauty."

Man says:
"It's all your fault! I hate you! Boohoo! *pout*****moan*"

[PrinceMyshkin]

He gave us free will and we have made - on our own - choices that have resulted in the reality of our history. God allows us to make those choices, but we are ultimately responsible.

I know of no more authority for the divine gift of free will than for an assertion that god gave us camembert. Are you referring to the same 'God' who forbade Adam & Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"? If their transgression was the origin of our free will (and what good would free will be without the Knowledge of Good and Evil?), then God hardly "gave" it to us.

[Gorilla King]

I know of no more authority for the divine gift of free will than for an assertion that god gave us camembert. Are you referring to the same 'God' who forbade Adam & Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"? If their transgression was the origin of our free will (and what good would free will be without the Knowledge of Good and Evil?), then God hardly "gave" it to us.

You're reasoning in circles. Adam and Eve CHOSE to eat the fruit. Hence free will existed prior to the fall. What we didn't have was knowledge of evil. But, God offered that choice because without choice there can't be love.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You're reasoning in circles. Adam and Eve CHOSE to eat the fruit. Hence free will existed prior to the fall. What we didn't have was knowledge of evil. But, God offered that choice because without choice there can't be love.

I wonder if it's in you to offer the essence of your response without sneering at my reasoning process!

THe "free will" that Adam & Eve possessed in eating of the fruit was clearly NOT GIVEN to them by God but something they asserted on their own, in defiance of God and for which God severely punished them indicating that if indeed he allowed them free will he didn't intend them to use it but within certain parameters, hence limited free will if you like.

Furthermore, Eve succumbed to the specious argument of the serpent so she was not using informed free will, which she did not possess until she ate of the fruit. If there is circularity here, it is of God's doing. I.e. they were to be free as long as they were ignorant of the possible consequences of acting freely.

Further re circularity, the essence of your and other proponents of Abrahamic religions appears to me to be There must be a God because there are texts which claim (or which others claim) to be the work of God in which it is written that there is a God, therefore there must be a God because there are texts which claim (or which others claim) to be the work of God in which it is written that there is a God, therefore there must be a God because there are texts which claim (or which others claim) to be the work of God in which it is written that there is a God, therefore there must be a God because there are texts which claim (or which others claim) to be the work of God in which it is written that there is a God ad infinitum or until the cows come home or the last of the unbelievers have been silenced or delivered to hell...

[Pendragon]

Here goes another thread doomed for lock up. The subject is "Inventing God." That would seem to indicate that the question is as follows: Does God exisit or was God an invention of man in an attempt to explain the unexplainable?

If God is the invention of man to explain the unexplainiable, it is a complete failure. We are left with more questions than answers.

I do not believe God to be the invention of man. God exists on a level that man cannot understand. Our preceptions of God sometimes may be our own, what we can deal with, what we can believe. But for all of the imagination of man, and we are a very courious race, we think, imagine, and then often find ways to make it happen, we could not come close to defining what God would be. We must either accept that He exists or refuse to accepot that point, for we cannot understand the infinate.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Here goes another thread doomed for lock up. The subject is "Inventing God." That would seem to indicate that the question is as follows: Does God exisit or was God an invention of man in an attempt to explain the unexplainable?

If God is the invention of man to explain the unexplainiable, it is a complete failure. We are left with more questions than answers.

I do not believe God to be the invention of man. God exists on a level that man cannot understand. Our preceptions of God sometimes may be our own, what we can deal with, what we can believe. But for all of the imagination of man, and we are a very courious race, we think, imagine, and then often find ways to make it happen, we could not come close to defining what God would be. We must either accept that He exists or refuse to accepot that point, for we cannot understand the infinate.

And yet, my friend, whether or not God was originally the invention of man. he is constantly being invented and reinvented, parsed and paraphrased and having words and intentions crammed into his mouth by both lay and professional theologians. If he is indeed unexplainable then one cannot really guess at his existence or nature.

[Derringer]

I do not believe God to be the invention of man. God exists on a level that man cannot understand..

If God is the invention of man to explain the unexplainiable, it is a complete failure. We are left with more questions than answers.



So God is unexplainable, but doesn't explain unexplainable? I would say that that is contradictory, but I'll be nice and say it is a paradox.

[Gorilla King]

It'd be more accurate to say I think, that one can only understand of God what God chooses to reveal about Himself. Contradiction solved.

[Mr. Dr. Ralph]

It sounds enigmetic. Every new idea is enigmatic and strange until we digest and assimilate it. For your conditioned to a particular set of belief and you think within a a box and can not dare come out of it.

You are a prisionor of your surroundings, your relatives, your beleifs. Break the wall of the prison and see you will have a differnt and broad expereince.

Your religions, yuor cultures, your upbringings are confining you within a narrow domain of your prropensities.

You have gods, you have prejudices and preoccupations.

Feel frerr and come out of the box of your thought system.

God is you.

The cosmos is you.

All you see around you is you

Imagine how does God exiist to you atlease if your metnal frame does keep it
God is your invention.

Surprisingly, this is among the better posts in this thread. Although explained poorly, it isn't very much of a stretch to find that you are equivalent to everything, and if everything is equivalent, then it may also be considered God. He brings up two key points worth noting.

1) Many followers of religion are convinced they are right because they are not familiar with thinking any other way. The foundation of their faith is not of reason but of social encouragement and an illogical system of reward and punishment. Silly ideas that we normally would disregard as untrue are vehemently asserted by religious leaders; followers are rewarded with social acceptance and a sense of accomplishment for their poor reasoning. This not only applies for Christians, but each any every religion that is demonstrably incorrect and contrary to scientific data. Any social edifice that ignores empiricism is delusional.

2) The concept of the self is very much obscured by the above post, displaying the flimsy and delicate constitution of language. The bold claim that you are God and your surroundings brings the idea of what the self really is into focus. When you rhetorically say that you're hungry, that you like movies, etc, you're in fact making statements that do not mean anything. Ask some people what they are, what they consider themselves to be, and they will tell you something like their body, their soul, etc.

Think for a moment that everything on this planet is the remnants of a dead star; the atoms comprising your body aren't really yours because they existed prior to your self-awareness. Appeals to the soul are similarly groundless (most people can't even explain what it is), and so are appeals to memories, personality, etc, as those are merely functions of the body.

The idea of the self, that "I" am this and "you" are that is foolish, a social misnomer that is constantly asserted in rhetoric. There is no such thing as the self, everything is indeed equivalent with respect to attributes.


And yet, my friend, whether or not God was originally the invention of man. he is constantly being invented and reinvented, parsed and paraphrased and having words and intentions crammed into his mouth by both lay and professional theologians. If he is indeed unexplainable then one cannot really guess at his existence or nature.

Quoted for truth. If God is unknowable, then the Bible and Qur'an are useless and only assert unsubstantiated conjecture.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It'd be more accurate to say I think, that one can only understand of God what God chooses to reveal about Himself. Contradiction solved.

Tautology. One can only understand of God what one has decided a priori one is likely or certain to hear of/from God.

In other words, 'God' cannot reveal to you what you have previously decided God is, or that He is.


Quoted for truth. If God is unknowable, then the Bible and Qur'an are useless and only assert unsubstantiated conjecture.

But some Christians will have it one way - that God is unknowable - and some will have it another - that the Bible was dictated by God, is evidence of God's existence and nature - and some indeed would have it both ways at once.

I would say that if God does not exist, the Bible, Qur'an and other 'sacred' books are part of an ongoing discussion of the question How shall we live, the posing of which is an essentially moral act, and that when these books are codified & treated as dogma, that ongoing moral discussion becomes immoral or at best amoral.

[Gorilla King]

Tautology. One can only understand of God what one has decided a priori one is likely or certain to hear of/from God.

In other words, 'God' cannot reveal to you what you have previously decided God is, or that He is.

No, it just shows that you don't understand what's being discussed. A person cannot understand the totality of God. A person can understand what God shows us of Himself. When you meet someone, just because you had a conversation doesn't mean you fully understand them. Why then would you place such an absurd ring around God?

[Gorilla King]

But some Christians will have it one way - that God is unknowable - and some will have it another - that the Bible was dictated by God, is evidence of God's existence and nature - and some indeed would have it both ways at once.

I would say that if God does not exist, the Bible, Qur'an and other 'sacred' books are part of an ongoing discussion of the question How shall we live, the posing of which is an essentially moral act, and that when these books are codified & treated as dogma, that ongoing moral discussion becomes immoral or at best amoral.

If you believe that's what the bible is then you must be reading the Jesus Seminar translation. ;)

[PrinceMyshkin]

No, it just shows that you don't understand what's being discussed. A person cannot understand the totality of God. A person can understand what God shows us of Himself. When you meet someone, just because you had a conversation doesn't mean you fully understand them. Why then would you place such an absurd ring around God?

No, YOU don't understand, and we can go back and forth in that manner! What 'God' has revealed to those who a priori believe in him differs so widely from religion to religion and within the practicioners of each religion that it amounts really to nothing of the absolute, pristine, irreducible nature of 'God.'

The basis of what you keep saying to me and other sceptics/agnostics is 'When you believe in God then you will understand and embrace him.' But other than on the basis of a lot of somewhat muddled text expressd in often lofty ambiguous language & the vested interest of priests & ecumenical councils and legions of theologists Why should I believe in God?

[PrinceMyshkin]

If you believe that's what the bible is then you must be reading the Jesus Seminar translation. ;)

Or - Horror of horrors - I am thinking...... for myself!

[Gorilla King]

No, YOU don't understand, and we can go back and forth in that manner! What 'God' has revealed to those who a priori believe in him differs so widely from religion to religion and within the practicioners of each religion that it amounts really to nothing of the absolute, pristine, irreducible nature of 'God.'

The basis of what you keep saying to me and other sceptics/agnostics is 'When you believe in God then you will understand and embrace him.' But other than on the basis of a lot of somewhat muddled text expressd in often lofty ambiguous language & the vested interest of priests & ecumenical councils and legions of theologists Why should I believe in God?

The reason I don't engage you seriously is because you spew ignorance and build this army of straw men and then wonder why is gets knocked over by the wind. Tell you what, you disband your little toy army of what you think Christianity is and then we can talk.

As for why you should believe in God...you shouldn't. Belief by itself is meaningless. You should worship Him. He made you after all.

[Mr. Dr. Ralph]

No, it just shows that you don't understand what's being discussed. A person cannot understand the totality of God. A person can understand what God shows us of Himself. When you meet someone, just because you had a conversation doesn't mean you fully understand them. Why then would you place such an absurd ring around God?

No, he is entirely correct. In claiming that you understand an aspect of what God has allowed you to understand, you're presupposing that God is allowing you to understand him, which you cannot do for something that you cannot understand on your own. In the context of your example, it is unsound to use the qualities of that one conversation as an axiom to make more claims as to what the person's attributes are; you are not guaranteed to know anything about someone after a conversation.


But some Christians will have it one way - that God is unknowable - and some will have it another - that the Bible was dictated by God, is evidence of God's existence and nature - and some indeed would have it both ways at once.

I would say that if God does not exist, the Bible, Qur'an and other 'sacred' books are part of an ongoing discussion of the question How shall we live, the posing of which is an essentially moral act, and that when these books are codified & treated as dogma, that ongoing moral discussion becomes immoral or at best amoral.

Of course some people will have it one way and then another, I wouldn't expect anything different...

I somewhat disagree with your second paragraph because if God truly does not exist then the books are irrelevant. Holy texts are said to contain the will of God and how he wants people to live, if he doesn't exist then the moral code in the books can be disregarded. Better yet, a new methodology would have to be employed to decide moral behavior, perhaps one without wild appeals to imagination. Though I will certainly agree that moral discussion grounded on anything treated as absolute dogma is doomed, as opinion, albeit accepted and common, very often has emotion and culture as a foundation (if it can be seen as not, it is probably a coincidence...).

[Gorilla King]

Or - Horror of horrors - I am thinking...... for myself!

Which as we discussed in another topic is essentially an empty and meaningless statement. ;)

[Logos]

Closed because it was never in line with the specific Religious Texts Forums' rules
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15410 in the first place, and for personal comments.